Jon Mark Beilue's Blog

We're apparently getting paid like it's 1995 without the 1995 costs. The U.S. Census Bureau recently released figures that showed the average median household income has fallen to $50,054 in 2011, the fourth consecutive year it has fallen.

It's down from a peak income of $59,132 in 1999. Analysts believe it might take a generation to return to '99 levels. Meanwhile, inflation is not so slow.

College football just got a little bit more interesting. Mike Leach is no longer selling books or doing a radio show. He still may be suing a university and a network, but as of Wednesday, he's doing so as the coach of the Washington State Cougar with a 5-year, $11 million contract.

Like Texas Tech did a little more than 11 years ago, Washington State is taking a calculated risk on a coach known for his exciting offense, winning games, and doing things his way, insubordination or not.

Had Michigan defeated Louisville in the NCAA basketball championship game Monday night, the winner of the 8.1 million entries in the ESPN Tournament Challenge would have been Brayden Schager of Dallas.

Schager is 10 years old.

Had Louisville not won, 82-76, he would have had the top bracket out of the more than 8 million. He correctly picked 12 of the Sweet 16, seven of the Elite Eight and all four in the Final Four with Louisville and Michigan in the finals.

Touche, Tom Leppert. Someone on your campaign staff is pretty darn clever. Leppert, the former Dallas mayor, is running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.

He couldn't resist taking a jab at President Obama's "Obama Bracket Challenge." Obama's re-election campaign posted the President's picks for the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments, which allows the public to make their picks to see how they measure up against POTUS. There's a bit of an ulterior motive too -- to expand Obama's contact list and maybe generate a donation or too.

In early August, I wrote a column on Amarillo native Ben Steed and his piloting the V-22 Osprey, the tilt-rotor aircraft that is assembled by Bell and Boeing in his hometown. It's believed 1st Lt. Steed, 26, is the first Amarilloan to co-pilot an aircraft built in Amarillo.

Emmett Autry, the city of Amarillo's utility director, was asked Monday if Amarillo would go from voluntary to mandatory rationing on watering landscape during this historically dry summer. Amarillo's neighbor to the east, Oklahoma City, has mandatory rationining based on odd-even house addresses.

"It's a definite possibility," said Autry, "especially if we have any kind of mechanical failure. We're still seeing Saturdays in the 80-million use."

When I talked to some local District Attorneys a couple of weeks ago, they expressed doubt that the killings of Kaufman County assistant DA Mark Hasse, and DA Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, east of Dallas were done by organized crime.

The white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood group was the focus of the case early on after Hasse was shot near the Kaufman County courthouse on Jan. 31 and McLelland and his wife were found shot in their home in late March.